About

RickB- Human, Artist, Fool.

Ynys Mon, UK.

The blog is called ten percent because of what Kurt Vonnegut wrote when remembering Susan Sontag - She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.-

And I'm writing it because I need the therapy and I lust for world domination.

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Royal Mail will recruit up to 30,000 temporary staff to deal with upcoming strikes by postal workers and the Christmas rush, the service has said. The Communication Workers Union has called two nationwide strikes next week over pay, conditions and reform. The firm said it would hire twice the usual number of extra pre-Christmas staff to cut the impact of “unjustified and irresponsible” industrial action. But the CWU said managers should be talking, not “planning for failure”. The 24-hour strikes will begin on 22 October. On the first day, mail centre staff and drivers will strike. The next day it will be delivery and collection staff.

And guess what, because of the ‘crisis’ (the creators of which are currently paying themselves multimillion pound bonuses) there are lots of unemployed people and because of welfare privatisation and ‘reform’ they cannot survive for long or take work of their choice, see how that works?

The man behind one of the largest cannabis operations in the UK has been jailed for nine years. Bo Xing He, 31, ran a series of cannabis factories across north Wales producing drugs with an estimated annual street value of almost £14m.

Caernarfon Crown Court was told that the cannabis factory in High Street, Bangor, Gwynedd, was believed to be the largest ever found in the UK. Another 15 defendants were sentenced to between two and five-and-a-half years. Bo Xing He, who admitted to conspiring to produce cannabis, was described by the judge as “head of an absolutely enormous conspiracy” who controlled the properties and workforce. The court heard that he had lived at a rented six-bedroom house in exclusive Gannock Park, Deganwy, Llandudno, and there was evidence of a lavish lifestyle. Police found £130,000 and an S-type Jaguar

A further 12 people, who were said to have played a “gardening role” looking after the plants, were also jailed. The judge said many of them were victims because they were working to pay off debts but, without them, there would have been no plants.

The War-On-Drugs is a ludicrous make work scam by the security/legal/prison establishment, not designed to solve anything but to keep chumps in jobs, jobs that often pay well and give them the power to wield state sanctioned violence. The only real crime committed here is an exploitative boss making himself rich while the workers were virtual slaves, however as that dynamic is played out on every high street and is eulogised in business porn like The Apprentice that is not the crime that anyone cares about. So everyone gets locked up for growing dope including the victims, the indentured workers. How perverted in our thinking, in our accustomed uncritical perception of ‘how things are’ have we become that growing a plant is a crime but exploiting others to enrich yourself is celebrated. The boss was not locked up for being rich, he was locked up for achieving it via illegal drugs, oddly if the drugs were legal he would be celebrated, even if they actually killed more people than cannabis *vioxx* cough*. And the Judge has no excuse, nor do the barristers and solicitors, they clearly had the life chances to become very well informed, to study, yet they chose instead to keep towing the line and have a successful career and nevermind the human cost. People look back to say…witch burning times, with horror and wonder, how could people be so horrible and stupid, well duh we are in the midst of it still and the answer is uncritical thinking, ignorance and greed (perhaps a useful definition of careerism). Not a single well remunerated person who was involved in this has done a single thing of any worth other than stop an exploitative boss, but that wasn’t their intention, it’s a byproduct so no, they don’t get any credit for that. In fact they have done harm and most will not even have such a thought enter their head and worse still some do yet they take the money and keep up with this bullshit. And no I don’t know anyone who was caught up in this and no I don’t bother smoking dope either, but when something so clearly not justice is trumpeted as a great victory for such the dissonance is too much to bear.

And Jeebus I still can’t get over Judge/Recorder Nic Parry ‘but, without them, there would have been no plants.‘ Yeah and without the inmates of death camps they’d be no death camps so really the prisoners are the ones to blame, what a fucking imbecile.

On September 22, 2009, Mohammad Othman was arrested and detained by Israeli soldiers on the Allenby Bridge Crossing, the border from Jordan to Palestine. He was returning from a trip to Norway, where he was advocating for Palestinian human rights. Ask U.S. President Obama to press for his immediate release.

(If you are not in the U.S., consider joining this action alert. Hold President Obama. accountable for his Cairo speech. Ask him to live up to the promise of his Nobel Peace Prize by supporting Mohammad Othman.) Click Here.

Israeli arrests of Palestinian human rights activists aim at stopping grassroots activism and the global call for Israeli accountability in front of international courts and through boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) campaigns. We therefore call on all people all over the world to let Israel know: “If you want to arrest the BDS movement, you have to catch us all!”

18 days have passed since Mohammed Othman was arrested in reprisal for his ongoing advocacy against the Wall and occupation. Since then he has been held in solitary confinement and often undergoes up to 16 hours of continuous interrogation focusing on his international advocacy.

Mohammad was arrested on his trip back from Norway, where he spoke about Israeli human rights violations and welcomed Norwegian action to hold Israel accountable. Norway’s national Pension Fund recently divested from Elbit, the Israeli company which provides drones and other military technology for Occupation forces and security systems for the Wall and settlements. This was only one of many successes of the BDS movement among unions, parties, intellectuals, artists and governments.